German Agricultural Minister Horst Seehofer also rejected calls for a law against slaughter without stunnung.

“Politicians cannot ignore religious freedom,” he said, in a
reference to the fact that Federal Constitutional Law grants minorities
the right to live according to their faith among themselves if they
otherwise observe the law, as well as the right to exercise
freely their chosen profession or trade.

In 1995, the German Constitutional Court had ruled that Islam did
not necessarily demand ritual slaughter, making the practice illegal.

But in 2002, it re-established the right for German butchers to
slaughter animals according to Islamic religious ritual in a case
brought by a Turkish butcher from Giessen.